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Arum interested in Mares vs. Donaire in 2013

By Chris Williams: Top Rank promoter Bob Arum is interested in putting a unification fight together between WBC super bantamweight champion Abner Mares (24-0-1, 13 KO’s) and his own fighter WBO super bantamweight champion Nonito Donaire (30-1, 19 KO’s) in 2013, but Mares might not get the fight if he’s still with Golden Boy Promotions. Arum seems to be interested in making the fight but it appears that there might be a catch involved with Mares needing to be free of Golden Boy.

Arum told examiner.com writer Chris Robinson “Well, if Mares wins the fight [against Anselmo Moreno], his contract is expiring with Golden Boy and so he can do that fight.”

Who knows whether or not Mares will choose to stay with Golden Boy. You can bet Golden Boy will make him a huge offer to try and get him to stay with them. The lure of moving to Top Rank is a big money fight against Donaire, as well as a fight against WBA World super bantamweight champion Guillermo Rigondeaux.

Arum is interested in matching Donaire up against 33-year-old former four division world champion Jorge Arce (61-6-2, 46 KO’s) on December 15th. I don’t see that as a competitive fight, but rather a money bout because Arce is very popular fighter among Mexican fans of the sport and they’ll probably be excited about this fight, even though it won’t be competitive because Arce is so much smaller than Donaire and is starting to show signs of aging.

Arum is likely going to exhaust all of his own Top Rank stable before he has Donaire fight Mares next year. Arum still has Guillermo Rigondeaux in his stable and he’s been holding back in putting him in with Donaire for some reason. It’s obviously a risky thing for Arum if he allows that fight to take place.

If Donaire beats Rigondeaux than he won’t get a lot of credit or attention from the casual boxing fans because they don’t know who Rigondeaux is. At the same time Arum will be losing the marketability for Rigondeaux before he’s even gotten a chance to make a name for himself. And if Rigondeaux beats Donaire, it’ll hurt Donaire’s marketability and that in turn will hurt Arum. So Arum has a lot of reasons for not wanting to make the Rigondeaux-Donaire fight.

There’s a big question of whether Mares can beat Anselmo Moreno, who he’ll be fighting on November 10th. If Mares loses to Moreno, then Arum will likely lose all interest in matching him against Donaire.